multiple values per table cell?

I am converting a site from asp to .net and the previus writer did something I never saw.(I am somewhat new to programming all together). He put multiple values in a single cell of the database. I have always learned to use a seperate column for each value.
Is this a classic asp thing and there are better ways now? Or is this something I should do myself? The columns type is text and the contents look like this:

<Details Expertise="bla bla" Description="We are a three-divisional company ...," WebSite="www.blabla.com" AccountLevel="Free" AccountStatus="Active" WorkHomeZIP="22222" ContractStartDate="01/01/2003" ContractEndDate="12/31/2003"><Address Location="Work" State="Oh" ZIP="22222"/><Email Location="Work" Value=""/><Phone Location="Fax" Code="9801" Ext=""/></Details>

Putting aside the question of the style being used for a moment, the contents of the column is not *really* multiple values, but a single XML string. This allows it to be easily read into a XmlDocument object and parsed.

As for the reason behind this approach, the only one I can thing of would be to store dynamic categories of information that is not known at design time. While none come to mind immediately, I'm sure that there might be times when this approach is quite valid. It is *not*, however, a classic ASP thing, but a database design decision. As to whether you should change the approach, I would if the attributes in the XML string were always the same. Better to use a database to do what databases were intended to do ;)

HTH